Urgent help with AVS S5 alarm

[scott.mohekey]

Hey guys.. My vr4 has been sitting without a battery for a month or so while I saved to get a clutch for the manual conversion. Unfortunately, my daily driver (an '87 AE82 Corolla FX-GT) failed its WOF quite miserably the other day, so I put the battery back into the legnum, hoping to use it for the few days (weeks?) that the Corolla is out of action. This is where my story turns sour.. The car won't start. When I turn the key to the start position, the alarm LED flashes and you can hear the relays in the alarm (I assume) going mad, at the same time, the siren does NOT sound (?). I've tried entering the PIN to do an emergency start, but that just doesn't seem to work at all. I then though, maybe its forgotten the key fobs, so looked up how to make it learn new ones, but that requires entering the PIN, and I've already got nowhere with that.

Does anybody have ANY ideas as to what could be going wrong? I'll probably call someone to come and sort it out tomorrow, but I'd like to avoid the call out fee if possible.

[mattnz]

Are you sure the Corolla battery is good?

[scott.mohekey]

Sorry, I meant that I put the Legnum battery back into the Legnum. I.e. it has been sitting in the garage on the shelf.

[mattnz]

Ah, I see :)

I dunno, lots of clicking sounds like a bad battery to me, and I've had my share of flat batteries :P

[scott.mohekey]

I've had bad batteries too, and the clicking is usually the starter motor solenoid trying to move. This is a different sound though, and is coming from in the cabin roughly where the alarm is.

[Subaru ETA]

I would just try chucking some jumper leads on it while you try and start it or even giving it a bench charge. Have you put a volt meter on it?

[scott.mohekey]

Ok, I'll give that a go now.

[wintertidenz]

Yeah, sounds like a dead battery - my Dynatron kept doing funny things with relays when the battery was flat. Try to start it, and the starter motor clicks - then the relays click again and immobilize the starter motor till you arm and disarm the alarm.

Probably the same thing that the AVS is doing - not enough current to enable all the relays at once, maybe?

[low_vr4]

Batteries slowly discharge overtime if they are left sitting for multiple weeks/months

[scott.mohekey]

I just measured the battery with a voltmeter, and its fluctuating between 4 and 7volts... problem solved!!

So, I've put the battery on the charger overnight, and will see how we look tomorrow morning.

[CANDEE]

Between 4 & 7 volts on a normal battery usually = dead.. :(

[scott.mohekey]

Really? What could have killed it? It was working fine before I took it out of the car.

[Gly]

cold kills batteries, especially if its already weak

shaking/vibration can damage plates (lead/acid)

also lead acid batteries are not designed to be drained and then recharged,
over time they loose there ability to be fully charged and hold an effective charge

as they loose charge the plates sulfate, this is what eventually ends a batteries life

they need to be kept topped up (used or on a trickle charger) regularly, to prevent sulfur build up

[scott.mohekey]

Yeah, the battery was still pretty dead this morning (~9v), so I swapped the battery out of the Rolla into the VR4 and we were away laughing.

[taylor]

herp?!

[scott.mohekey]

Shush you! lol